


in paradise up above

by ScatteredWords



Category: Black Mirror
Genre: F/F, Fluff, San Junipero
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-08
Updated: 2016-12-08
Packaged: 2018-09-07 06:37:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8787511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScatteredWords/pseuds/ScatteredWords
Summary: It's not the real 1950s, but that's just as well for Kelly and Yorkie. (pure, unadulterated fluff)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GleefullyWicked](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GleefullyWicked/gifts).



> For my dear friend Ellie. Happy birthday- sorry it's so belated. Have fun in Florida!

“Waiting for someone?”

The young woman glanced up from the plastic menu on the counter. Tiny rhinestones at the corners of her cat-eye glasses glinted in the overhead lights as she shifted on her barstool.

“Yep,” she said, an involuntary smile creeping across her face.

“Been waiting long?” The counter-man’s answering smile was a bit more cautious, tentative. He swiped a rag over one side of the glass in his hand, but his focus remained on his customer.

“No. We’re local girls.” A shadow crossed her face briefly, as if she’d let slip a secret. Her shoulders tensed and her eyes darted to the patrons laughing at the other end of the counter.

“Hey,” the counter-man said gently. “Hey, it’s okay. This isn’t the real ‘50s, you know.”

She sighed, tension flowing out of her, muscles relaxing. “I know. Just…old habits.”

“I’m Zach.” He extended a hand.

She shook it. “Yorkie.”

“Pleasure.” Zach carefully added his glass to the large pyramid against the back wall, rinsed the rag in the sink, and applied it to the counter with somewhat more zeal. “So, this girl a date or your steady or what?”

A giggle bubbled out of Yorkie; she fiddled with a button on her pale blue sweater. “Wow,” she said, “you’re really good at this. This can’t be your decade…?” She trailed off, raising her eyebrows.

“Nah,” Zach said, shaking his head and wiping up some spilled Coke. “I’d have been long gone before this place came around if it was. Just a history geek.”

She nodded thoughtfully. Then, her smile widening somewhat, she half-whispered, “My wife.”

“Your wife?” Another nod. Zach set down his rag and shook her hand firmly. “Congratulations, then. That’s wonderful.”

“I know,” Yorkie replied, still wearing that dreamy smile.

“But hang on a second. You’re married and she’s not taking you to some ritzy joint like Chez Pierre? Who makes their wife meet them at a soda fountain?” A teasing note had crept into his voice.

“For your information,” she shot back just as playfully, “it was my idea. This place is new.” One saddle-shoed foot kicked against the counter, sending her bar stool into a spin that she finally halted by smacking her hands down on the marble surface. “I want to have fun with it.”

Zach raised his hands in mock defeat. “It’s your date, honey.”

“ ‘Honey?’ “

The last echoes of the tinkling door bells died away as Yorkie swiveled her stool around, her heart skipping a beat- still? she thought idly. But the moment of caught breath and stomach butterflies was undeniable.

A statuesque woman stood just beyond the doorway, posed- you showoff –as if on the cover of a pulp fiction novel. From her figure-hugging red dress with black polka dots to her vivid lipstick and heavily lacquered updo, she could have been the winner of some Miss 1957 pageant (if 1957 had been more progressive on racial equality). Her expression was a picture of innocent confusion.

“Am I interrupting something?” she asked, eyes darting very obviously from Zach to Yorkie. She held her pose a moment more before a smile began to creep across her face.

Yorkie laughed. “Of course not, drama queen. Zach,” she added as the newcomer clicked her way across the checkerboard floor and sat down on the stool next to her, “this is my wife, Kelly.”

“Charmed.” Kelly extended her hand grandly and Zach kissed it with an exaggerated flourish before letting go. “And much as I’d love to stay for an egg cream…” She turned to Yorkie and quirked an eyebrow, jerking her head towards the door.

Yorkie took Kelly’s arm. “Lead the way.”

As they neared the doorway, a sleek dark shape became visible through the glass. Steel gleamed in the red-gold light of the San Junipero sunset, black with chrome fixtures and a streamlined triangle of silver visible on one abbreviated tailfin. The doorbell jingled their exit and a startled burst of laughter escaped before Yorkie could catch it.

Kelly beamed. “Like the new ride?”

“Like it?” Yorkie stared at the car in awe. “I- wow. How did you know what…?”

“My uncle collected the classics,” Kelly explained. She ran a hand almost reverently along the hood. “It’s a ’57 Chevy Bel Air. Always was my favorite.”

Now it was Kelly Yorkie stared at, with a crooked grin. “You and cars.”

“Me and cars,” she agreed. Then, swiftly, she stretched up and stole a light kiss. “Me and you.”

Yorkie pushed back a strand of hair that had come loose from her ponytail, cheeks suddenly red. Finally, she managed, “I’m glad I rate as high as cars.”

“You rate higher,” Kelly replied, and opened the passenger side door. “Come on, Cinderella. We’re going to the ball.”

Sliding in, Yorkie shut the door behind her. “What ball?” she asked as Kelly turned the key in the ignition and the car purred to life.

“You’ll see.” She got no further explanation but Kelly’s sly smile as they sped through the suburbs and into San Junipero’s heart.

The question ceased to matter once they hit downtown. Signs in a thousand neon colors advertised nightclubs, live music acts, and for some odd reason, Brylcreem. A movie theatre with a glowing marquee proudly announced the release of “Band of Angels” and “12 Angry Men” beneath flashing bands of red and green. The pedestrians on the sidewalk looked straight out of faded old photographs, but real, but laughing and talking, but in vibrant color- flashes of red lipstick and blue Dior gowns.

Yorkie let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “I get why they added the historic levels now.”

Almost too soon, they pulled up before a building whose sign shone brighter than the others. Falling Star, it proclaimed in silvery letters, as a golden star “fell” haltingly in a curve from the roof. Kelly put on the parking brake, stepped out, and opened Yorkie’s door. With a small bow, she held out her hand.

“It wouldn’t do to make my date walk all the way across the parking lot.”

Heels clicked on the pavement- heels Yorkie definitely hadn’t been wearing at the soda fountain. Kelly glanced questioningly at the voluminous green skirts now swirling around her calves and the auburn locks swept into an elegant chignon.

Yorkie’s cheeks flushed again. “I was thinking about a picture of my mom I saw once. From when she and Dad were dating. I guess it just kind of…slipped out.”

With a sigh, Kelly pulled her close. “You look beautiful,” she whispered, and held her wife for a moment before letting go reluctantly.

“Have to park the car,” she explained. “Otherwise I’ll block the loading zone.” With a wink, she ducked back into the drivers’ seat and sped off towards the small lot nearby.

“Oh my god,” Yorkie muttered under her breath.

\-------

The Falling Star, as it turned out, was packed inside.

It seemed that every couple here in 1957 had the same idea, spending date night somewhere besides the omnipresent Tucker’s (which now, Kelly said, had taken on more of a roadhouse feel). Still, there seemed to always be room for one more pair to dance comfortably on the slightly scuffed, polished floor.

And that was exactly where Kelly was headed, a protesting Yorkie in tow.

“You know I can’t dance!”

“I know you can if you forget to think you can’t,” Kelly said firmly. 

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Yorkie huffed, but her heart wasn’t in it. 

“Besides,” Kelly continued, “you’d have dug in your heels by now if you really didn’t want to. And yet, you haven’t.”

They were close enough now to feel the vibrations of the music in their feet, an unfamiliar tune that the band nonetheless turned into something intriguing and infectious. Even Yorkie found herself moving to the rhythm- which didn’t escape her (slightly smug) wife’s notice.

“See? You’re a natural.” Then, against no more than a token resistance, Kelly pulled her onto the dance floor.

As they reached the center of the crowd, the song ended. There was a moment of quiet, punctuated by laughter and low murmurs of conversation from the other dancers. Suddenly, the sound of trumpets floated out across the room, only to be replaced by a simple bass line and a chorus of voices coalescing into a familiar tune.

_Life could be a dream  
If I could take you up in paradise up above…_

Both women found themselves laughing with delight. “I know this one!” Yorkie exclaimed.

Kelly rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “York, everyone in the English-speaking world knows this song.” But she rested one hand on the small of her wife’s back and grasped her hand with the other. They began to sway in time with the music.

“I don’t know any swing,” Yorkie confessed, speaking a bit louder than she would have liked to be heard over the band.

“Me either,” Kelly said through a gritted-teeth smile. “Just go with it.”

Yorkie let out a peal of laughter and gently smacked her forehead against Kelly’s shoulder. “I thought the taller person was supposed to lead in same-sex ballroom.”

“Hey!” Kelly drew back and stared at her with mock horror. “I take umbrage at that remark, missy.”

Yorkie’s only response was to extend her arm and push Kelly gently away into a dramatic twirl (and to wonder, briefly, how the crowd knew to part for her). When they came together again, Kelly somehow wound up pressed against her chest. Yorkie doubted it was an accident.

“York?”

“Yes?”

Kelly looked up at her, expression inscrutable for a moment. Then she- beamed. There was no better word for it. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” And Yorkie forgot about dancing, forgot about the band and the crowd and 1957. Forgot about everything but this: holding her wife and feeling like her heart could burst.

Their lips met as the trumpets flared to raucous life once again.

_Life could be a dream, sweetheart._


End file.
